Pre/post Filtering Patents (Class 375/240.29)
  • Patent number: 8229001
    Abstract: A flag parameter in a digital image decoding is calculated. For a macroblock consisting of M×N blocks, a first operation is performed on M block along a first edge to obtain M first parameters, and a second operation is performed on N blocks along a second edge to obtain N second parameters. The first and second parameters are stored into corresponding locations in a first and a second buffer array. Then a flag parameter corresponding to a given block is calculated according to corresponding values stored in the first and second buffer arrays. Calculation for all of the M×N blocks is performed in the order that neighboring left and upper blocks next to the give block is processed prior to the given block.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 2, 2008
    Date of Patent: July 24, 2012
    Assignee: Via Technologies, Inc.
    Inventor: Eric Chuang
  • Publication number: 20120183081
    Abstract: A simplified parametric loop filter uses a set of fixed filters to remove or reduce noise and artifacts introduced during video coding. The simplified parametric loop filter uses the parameters such as direction and bandwidth to uniquely identify a fixed filter from the set of filters. The simplified parametric loop filter implements symmetry between filters, symmetry within each filter, unity DC gain and zero-forcing to 1) reduce the storage space in memorizing the fixed filters, and 2) reduce the computational complexity for performing filtering.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 1, 2011
    Publication date: July 19, 2012
    Applicant: SONY CORPORATION
    Inventors: Wei Liu, Lina Dong
  • Publication number: 20120183078
    Abstract: A method for processing video information by a video encoder includes classifying video information based on at least one local directional feature of the video information to design multiple filters. The encoder encodes filter coefficients of the multiple filters. The multiple filters are designed with symmetric constraints on the filter coefficients configured according to the classification of the video information based on at least one local directional feature of the video information. The method also includes applying, by the encoder, the multiple directional filters to the video information. A decoder is configured to decode filter coefficients of multiple filters and apply the multiple filters to the video information. The decoder constructs, from decoded filter coefficients, multiple filters with symmetric constraints on the filter coefficients configured according to the classification of the video information based on at least one local directional feature of the video information.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 10, 2012
    Publication date: July 19, 2012
    Inventors: Wang Lin Lai, Felix Carlos Fernandes
  • Patent number: 8223851
    Abstract: A method for enhancing a media file. The method comprises encoding a media file for a real time exchange of communications between a plurality of terminals, embedding a non-media communication of the real time exchange into the media file, and forwarding the embedded media file to at least one of the plurality of terminals.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 23, 2007
    Date of Patent: July 17, 2012
    Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Moshe M. Vered, Sagi Nagar
  • Patent number: 8223850
    Abstract: In one embodiment, the method includes determining a reference pixel group including a pixel to be filtered. The reference pixel group includes at least three successive pixels. Two of the three successive pixels are in a first block and one of the three successive pixels is in a second block. The second block is adjacent to the first block. The method further includes applying weight factors to at least each of the three successive reference pixels. The weight factors are different according to pixel position. A filtered value is obtained by summing at least the three weighted successive pixels.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 2, 2007
    Date of Patent: July 17, 2012
    Assignee: LG Electronics Inc.
    Inventor: Min Cheol Hong
  • Patent number: 8218655
    Abstract: A method, system and device are provided for pre-filtering device for filtering a video signal prior to digitally encoding. The method includes receiving at least one input picture and at least one reconstructed picture from an encoding process and performing an in-loop temporal filtering process using at least one input picture and at least one reconstructed picture from an encoding process to output a pre-filtered video signal for use in an encoding process. The result is enabling an encoding process to produce an output with increased temporal correlation between adjacent pictures regardless of the coding type, since the artifacts introduced by the encoding process are also considered by the process.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 19, 2005
    Date of Patent: July 10, 2012
    Assignee: Maxim Integrated Products, Inc.
    Inventors: Alexandros Michael Tourapis, Lulin Chen, Jose Roberto Alvarez
  • Patent number: 8218629
    Abstract: An encoding and/or decoding system, medium, and method with spatial prediction and spatial prediction compensation. The system may include a spatial prediction unit that spatially predicts pixel values of a current block of an image using neighboring blocks in a row immediately above the current block among neighboring blocks that are spatially adjacent to the current block. The spatial prediction unit performs spatial prediction using replaced pixel values of neighboring blocks in a row immediately above the current block every predetermined row unit, with the pixel values of neighboring blocks in a row immediately above the current block every predetermined row unit being replaced with a predetermined reference value.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 12, 2007
    Date of Patent: July 10, 2012
    Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Sang-jo Lee, Woo-shik Kim, Si-hwa Lee, Do-hyung Kim
  • Patent number: 8218634
    Abstract: A method and apparatus is disclosed herein for using an in-the-loop denoising filter for quantization noise removal for video compression. In one embodiment, the video encoder comprises a transform coder to apply a transform to a residual frame representing a difference between a current frame and a first prediction, the transform coder outputting a coded differential frame as an output of the video encoder; a transform decoder to generate a reconstructed residual frame in response to the coded differential frame; a first adder to create a reconstructed frame by adding the reconstructed residual frame to the first prediction; a non-linear denoising filter to filter the reconstructed frame by deriving expectations and performing denoising operations based on the expectations; and a prediction module to generate predictions, including the first prediction, based on previously decoded frames.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 12, 2006
    Date of Patent: July 10, 2012
    Assignee: NTT DoCoMo, Inc.
    Inventor: Onur G. Guleryuz
  • Publication number: 20120170668
    Abstract: Disclosed are a filter and a method to improve the objective and subjective video coding performance The filter comprises: a parameter estimation unit configured to determine means and variances from a pilot frame; a filter unit configured to receive quantized residual coefficients in video coding process and restore coefficients from the quantized residual coefficients and the determined means and variances; an inverse ICT unit configured to apply an inverse ICT to the restored coefficients to obtain a filtered frame; a rate-distortion optimization unit configured to determine a quadtree block partition index; and an adaptive block selection unit configured to select final blocks according to quadtree block partition index, the final blocks being utilized to form the filtered frame.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 4, 2011
    Publication date: July 5, 2012
    Applicant: THE CHINESE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG
    Inventors: Renqi Zhang, Wai Kuen Cham
  • Publication number: 20120170669
    Abstract: Provided are a filtering method and apparatus for removing blocking artifacts and ringing noise. The filtering method includes transforming video data on a block-by-block basis, and detecting the presence of an edge region in the video data by checking the distribution of values obtained by the transformation. Accordingly, it is possible to completely remove blocking artifacts and/or ringing noise by more effectively detecting the presence of an edge region in video data.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 14, 2012
    Publication date: July 5, 2012
    Applicant: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Jeong-hoon Park, Yong-je Kim, Yung-Iyul Lee
  • Patent number: 8213557
    Abstract: A filtering apparatus including: first and second filters used to filter inputted packets; a connection information register disposed in correspondence with the first filter; a condition storage portion configured to store a filter condition for identifying a packet associated to the second filter; a reference number register configured to allocate any one of the numbers of the second filters as a reference number for each number of the first filter and to store the reference numbers; and a determination portion configured to determine the number of the second filter to be used to filter packets filtered using the first filter based on the reference number and on a value of the connection information register corresponding to the first filter.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 12, 2007
    Date of Patent: July 3, 2012
    Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba
    Inventor: Kenji Tomizawa
  • Publication number: 20120163479
    Abstract: The method of filtering at least one group of at least one sample of a digital signal comprises a step of initializing current values of coefficients associated with each filter support, and, for at least two iterations, for each group of samples: for each sample, determining a filter support, filtering the samples in the group with this filter support and the current coefficients, for each filter support: obtaining, among the samples, a subgroup of samples corresponding to the filter support, and determining optimal values of the coefficients of the filter associated with said support according to a predetermined criterion, each iteration, as from the second, using as current values of coefficients the optimal values of coefficients of the previous iteration.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 28, 2010
    Publication date: June 28, 2012
    Applicant: CANON KABUSHIKI KAISHA
    Inventors: Christophe Gisquet, Félix Henry
  • Patent number: 8208563
    Abstract: This disclosure describes techniques for correcting artifacts that occur along a boundary of a substitute video unit generated using video unit substitution, e.g., motion-compensated video unit interpolation or extrapolation. In accordance with the techniques described in this disclosure, a frame substitution unit identifies first locations within a substitute video unit that correspond with a boundary that exists within a reference video unit and should exist within the substitute video unit, and corrects boundary artifacts in the first locations using a first boundary artifact correction technique. The frame substitution unit also identifies second locations within the substitute video unit that correspond with a boundary that exists within the substitute video unit and does not exist within the reference video unit and corrects boundary artifacts in the second locations using a second boundary artifact correction technique.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 27, 2009
    Date of Patent: June 26, 2012
    Assignee: QUALCOMM Incorporated
    Inventors: Gokce Dane, Chia-yuan Teng
  • Patent number: 8208565
    Abstract: Methods for pre-processing video sequences prior to compression to provide data reduction of the video sequence. In addition, after compression of the pre-processed video sequence, the bit rate of the pre-processed and compressed video sequence will be lower than the bit rate of the video sequence after compression but without pre-processing. A temporal filtering method is provided for pre-processing of video frames of a video sequence. In the method, pixel values of successive frames are filtered when the difference in the pixel values between the successive frames are within high and low threshold values. The high and low threshold values are determined adaptively depending on the illumination level of a video frame to provide variability of filtering strength depending on the illumination levels of a video frame.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 16, 2008
    Date of Patent: June 26, 2012
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Adriana Dumitras, James Oliver Normile, Ryan R. Salsbury
  • Patent number: 8208564
    Abstract: A method and apparatus is disclosed herein for video encoding and/or decoding using adaptive interpolation is described. In one embodiment, the decoding method comprises decoding a reference index; decoding a motion vector; selecting a reference frame according to the reference index; selecting a filter according to the reference index; and filtering a set of samples of the reference frame using the filter to obtain the predicted block, wherein the set of samples of the reference frame is determined by the motion vector.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 12, 2006
    Date of Patent: June 26, 2012
    Assignee: NTT Docomo, Inc.
    Inventors: Frank Bossen, Alexandros Tourapis
  • Patent number: 8204108
    Abstract: In a device and a method for detecting a letter box for an MPEG decoder, the method includes performing processing area filtering for selecting a processing area of an image used to detect the letter box; performing intra-macroblock filtering for determining the letter box area based on a change level of pixels in macroblocks in one line of the image from the processing area; performing impulse data filtering for excluding the line being detected a high frequency component from the determined letter box area; performing inter-macroblock filtering for determining the letter box area based on a change level of lines between macroblocks of the image; performing inter-line filtering for determining a boundary of the letter box based on an average of the pixel values of the lines; and performing inter-picture filtering for outputting a boundary value of the letter box that has the highest frequency number as the boundary of the letter box in successive images.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 8, 2010
    Date of Patent: June 19, 2012
    Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
    Inventor: Woo-Young Jang
  • Patent number: 8204129
    Abstract: A method of simplifying deblock filtering of video blocks of an enhanced layer of scalable video information is disclosed which includes selecting an adjacent pair of video blocks, determining whether boundary strength of the video blocks is a first value, evaluating first conditions using component values of a first component line if the boundary strength is not the first value, and bypassing deblock filtering between the video blocks if the boundary strength is the first value or if any of the first conditions is false. The method may include bypassing evaluating conditions and deblock filtering associated with the maximum boundary strength. The method may include bypassing evaluating second conditions and bypassing corresponding deblock filtering if the intermediate edge is a horizontal edge. The method may include bypassing less efficient memory reads associated with component values used for evaluating the second conditions.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 27, 2007
    Date of Patent: June 19, 2012
    Assignee: Freescale Semiconductor, Inc.
    Inventor: Zhongli He
  • Patent number: 8199834
    Abstract: System and method of providing improved signal compression using frame decimation through frame simplification and generating an encoded bitstream of video frames therefrom are disclosed. The encoding method comprises zeroing a difference frame generated by an encoder by using a feedback loop that injects a reconstructed frame, generated by the encoder of the difference frame, as a next frame of the video frames to be processed by the encoder. The encoding system comprises an input configured to provide a stream of video frames; a first process configured to generate a difference frame, and a second process configured to generate a reconstructed frame. A feedback loop of the system is configured to inject a generated reconstructed frame from the second process of a generated difference frame from the first process as a next frame of the video frames in the stream to be processed into the encoded bitstream by the encoding system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 20, 2006
    Date of Patent: June 12, 2012
    Assignee: University of Dayton
    Inventors: Frank Scarpino, Eric Balster, Thaddeus Marrara
  • Patent number: 8194759
    Abstract: A picture coding apparatus (300) is a picture coding apparatus that codes a difference between picture data (Img) representing an input picture and predictive picture data (Pred) representing a predictive picture for the input picture and generates coded picture data, and includes a picture decoding unit (104) for decoding coded picture data (Img) after the picture data (Img) is coded; inter pixel filters A and B (303 and 304) for performing inter pixel filter operation for decoded picture data (Recon) obtained by the picture decoding unit (104); switches (301 and 302) for selecting one of the inter pixel filters; and an inter picture predicting unit (108) for generating the predictive picture data (Pred) for the input picture data (Img) using filtered decoded picture data (FilteredImg1), as reference picture data (Ref), obtained by the selected inter pixel filter.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 30, 2007
    Date of Patent: June 5, 2012
    Assignee: Panasonic Corporation
    Inventors: Makoto Hagai, Shinya Kadono
  • Patent number: 8189688
    Abstract: An image decoding device includes an error detecting unit that detects a decoding error in each unit area in one frame of an image; an error compensating determining unit that determines an error compensating area for which error compensation should be performed for the decoding error; and an error compensating unit that performs error compensation to the error compensating area. The error compensating area determining unit determines a unit area where the decoding error occurs, and a predetermined area adjacent to the unit area, as the error compensating area.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 1, 2006
    Date of Patent: May 29, 2012
    Assignee: Panasonic Corporation
    Inventors: Hiroto Tomita, Takashi Hashimoto
  • Patent number: 8189054
    Abstract: A motion estimation method is provided for processing successive images in an image sequence, with a motion vector being associated with each of the processed images. For a current image, motion vectors associated with images that precede the current image in the sequence are selected. Candidate motion vectors are generated from the motion vectors that are selected. A motion vector is elected from among the candidate motion vectors. Information that associates the elected motion vector with the current image is stored in memory. At least one of candidate motion vectors is an acceleration vector generated from the acceleration between first and second motion vectors averaged relative to a first and second images, with the first and second images being distinct and preceding the current image in the image sequence. A motion vector averaged relative to a given image is obtained from selected motion vectors associated with images preceding the given image.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 14, 2005
    Date of Patent: May 29, 2012
    Assignee: STMicroelectronics S.A.
    Inventor: Pascal Mellot
  • Patent number: 8189656
    Abstract: Disclosed is a method (800) and an apparatus (250) for generating a scaled motion vector for a particular output coding unit, the method comprising determining (802) statistics of motion data from an area-of-interest selecting (804) from a pre-defined set (805-807) of re-sampling filters a re-sampling filter dependent upon said determined statistics for the particular output coding unit, and applying the selected re-sampling filter to motion vectors from said area-of-interest to generate the scaled motion vector.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 11, 2008
    Date of Patent: May 29, 2012
    Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventors: Zhonghua Ma, I-Jan Eric Wang
  • Patent number: 8184713
    Abstract: A deblocking filtering method for image data and a deblocking filter. According to the deblocking filtering method for image data and the deblocking filter, when computation of Boundary Strength (BS) values for each boundary based on one of horizontal and vertical directions from input image data is completed, it is possible to estimate BS values for each boundary based on a direction different from the currently selected direction by using the computed BS values. Further, deblocking filtering is performed based on corresponding directions according to the estimated values, so that the deblocking filtering can be completely performed with only a BS value of boundaries based on a selected one direction. Consequently, a BS value computation process necessarily required in a deblocking filtering process can be considerably reduced, and thus time required in the operation process of a deblocking filter can also be considerably reduced.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 17, 2007
    Date of Patent: May 22, 2012
    Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Han-Sang Kim, Young-Hun Joo, Kwang-Pyo Choi
  • Patent number: 8184722
    Abstract: A picture coding apparatus (300) is a picture coding apparatus that codes a difference between picture data (Img) representing an input picture and predictive picture data (Pred) representing a predictive picture for the input picture and generates coded picture data, and includes a picture decoding unit (104) for decoding coded picture data (Img) after the picture data (Img) is coded; inter pixel filters A and B (303 and 304) for performing inter pixel filter operation for decoded picture data (Recon) obtained by the picture decoding unit (104); switches (301 and 302) for selecting one of the inter pixel filters; and an inter picture predicting unit (108) for generating the predictive picture data (Pred) for the input picture data (Img) using filtered decoded picture data (FilteredImg1), as reference picture data (Ref), obtained by the selected inter pixel filter.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 30, 2007
    Date of Patent: May 22, 2012
    Assignee: Panasonic Corporation
    Inventors: Makoto Hagai, Shinya Kadono
  • Patent number: 8184721
    Abstract: A method of recursive filtering of a video image includes storing an image 20 comprising picture elements. Luminance and chrominance weightings are assigned for weighting neighbouring picture elements to a picture element in a current image 10 and for the stored image 20. A sum of differences is calculated between weighted luminance and chrominance values of a picture element and neighbouring picture elements of a current image and of corresponding picture elements of the stored image. The sum of differences is normalized to control sensitivity to motion in the image to obtain a value of a proportional parameter K(x,y) for each picture element. The current image is recursively filtered using the proportional parameter K(x,y) corresponding to each picture element by adding together a proportion K(x,y) of each picture element of the image to a complementary proportion of each corresponding picture element of the previously stored image.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 2, 2007
    Date of Patent: May 22, 2012
    Assignee: Telefonaktiebolaget L M Ericsson (Publ)
    Inventor: Arthur Mitchell
  • Patent number: 8179979
    Abstract: In one embodiment of the invention, a method includes receiving a video stream that includes a temporal discontinuity. Checkpoints are distributed in a non-linear fashion with unequal spacing between the checkpoints. The temporal discontinuity is then detected at one of the checkpoints.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 1, 2007
    Date of Patent: May 15, 2012
    Assignee: Intel Corporation
    Inventor: Nikolai Shostak
  • Patent number: 8180195
    Abstract: A memory device for storing a plurality of macroblocks may include a plurality of memory banks. Each macroblock may include m*n pixel data, wherein m is a positive integer, and wherein n also is a positive integer. The plurality of memory banks is adapted to store the pixel data, and wherein each memory bank is sized to store rows of m pixel data. An image processing system may include: a memory adapted to store a plurality of macroblocks; and a video codec. The memory may include a plurality of memory banks. Each memory bank may be sized to store rows of m pixel data. The video codec may be adapted to encode pixel data read from the memory. The video codec also may be adapted to decode the pixel data read from the memory.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 27, 2008
    Date of Patent: May 15, 2012
    Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Yong-Mi Lee, Jung-Sun Kang
  • Patent number: 8181216
    Abstract: A data processing apparatus that appropriately adjusts the image quality of an image. At a plurality of user terminals, image data transmitted from a broadcasting station is processed based on parameters input by users, and user information including the image data and the parameters is provided to a management server. The management server calculates noise amounts of the respective sets of image data included in the user information provided from the plurality of user terminals, calculates an average value of parameters input by users for each noise amount, and associates the average value with the noise amount. Furthermore, the management server provides a user terminal with server information including a parameter associated with a noise amount of image data from a user terminal. The user terminal processes the image data based on the parameter included in the server information from the management server.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 12, 2002
    Date of Patent: May 15, 2012
    Assignee: Sony Corporation
    Inventors: Tetsujiro Kondo, Kazutaka Ando
  • Publication number: 20120114048
    Abstract: Methods and apparatus are provided for collaborative partition coding for region based filters. An apparatus includes a video encoder (100) for encoding image data for a plurality of regions in a picture. The video encoder (100) includes multiple filters for filtering the image data based on region partition information for the plurality of regions. The region partition information for the plurality of regions is shared between the multiple filters.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 7, 2010
    Publication date: May 10, 2012
    Inventors: Joel Sole, Yunfei Zheng, Qian Xu, Peng Yin, Xiaoan Lu
  • Patent number: 8175168
    Abstract: Aspects of the present invention relate to systems and methods for picture up-sampling using direct interpolation. Some aspects of the present invention provide an up-sampling procedure designed for the Scalable Video Coding extension of H.264/MPEG-4 AVC.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 3, 2006
    Date of Patent: May 8, 2012
    Assignee: Sharp Laboratories of America, Inc.
    Inventor: Shijun Sun
  • Patent number: 8175121
    Abstract: An image processor includes a motion vector acquisition section for acquiring and outputting an image motion vector in pixel or a predetermined block unit from plural frames included in an input image signal; and a frame interpolation section for generating an interpolated frame by using the motion vector provided by the motion vector acquisition section and for combining the interpolated frame with a frame of the input image signal, thereby composing a signal of a new frame sequence. The motion vector acquisition section includes a first motion vector acquisition section acquiring a motion vector by matching process and a second motion vector acquisition section acquiring a motion vector based on a relative misalignment of a predetermined edge component between two temporally successive frames in a specific area of an input image signal's frame.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 20, 2007
    Date of Patent: May 8, 2012
    Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
    Inventors: Nobuhiro Fukuda, Masahiro Ogino, Yoshiaki Mizuhashi, Takashi Oyama
  • Patent number: 8170363
    Abstract: According to the present invention, there is provided a image processing apparatus comprising: at least one memory which stores data of each of at least a first image and a second image having no dependence upon each other's data; a memory access unit which reads out the data from and writes the data in said memory; and a filtering processing unit which receives the data read out by said memory access unit, performs a deblocking filtering process on the received data, and supplies the processed data to said memory access unit, wherein said filtering processing unit alternately performs a deblocking filtering process on at least one block boundary of the first image, and a deblocking filtering process on at least one block boundary of the second image.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 10, 2007
    Date of Patent: May 1, 2012
    Assignee: Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba
    Inventor: Yu Kikuchi
  • Patent number: 8160160
    Abstract: Systems and methods for reducing a bit-rate in a multimedia data stream while maintaining high image quality. Two consecutive frames of the multimedia data stream are spatially filtered, temporally filtered, and combined into a pre-processed frame. In one embodiment, the two consecutive frames are consecutive fields of an interlaced data stream that are deinterlaced by the spatial and temporal filtering process. The pre-processed frame is encoded multiple times using different quantization values to produce a plurality of encoded frames. One of the encoded frames is selected based on its image quality and/or size for inclusion in an encoded data stream. In one embodiment, the pre-processed frame undergoes a motion estimation method that performs an integer level search of overlapping locations around a co-located macroblock in a reference frame followed by a sub-pixel level diamond pattern search.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 8, 2006
    Date of Patent: April 17, 2012
    Assignee: Broadcast International, Inc.
    Inventor: David Frederique Blum
  • Patent number: 8160161
    Abstract: A method (50) and apparatus (40) for reducing noise in a video signal calculates (53) a discrimination value of a filter based on a magnitude difference between a current frame and a prior frame of a sequence of frames and modifies (54) the current frame using the modified discrimination value. The output of the filter is calculated as follows: g(i,j,k)=f(i,j,k)±? wherein: f(i, j, k) is the current frame input to the filter; g(i, j, k) is the current frame output from the filter; and ? is the discrimination value of the filter, which is calculated as follows: ? = { ?? ? + ? , ? ? = max ? { ? , ? 0 } , ? < ? 1 0 , ? ? ? 1 in which: ? and ? are constants less than one; ? is a magnitude difference between the current frame and the prior frame; and ?0 and ?1 are constants that satisfy ?0??1.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 18, 2008
    Date of Patent: April 17, 2012
    Assignee: General Instrument Corporation
    Inventor: Jing Yang Chen
  • Patent number: 8155192
    Abstract: Fully scalable encoder and decoder for interlaced video. A method for encoding an interlaced sequence of digital video data decomposes the interlaced video sequence into first and second fields, performs digital filtering to get lower frequency and higher frequency component signals of the first fields, and uses spatio-temporal filtering and motion estimation for generating base layer signals being suitable for reconstruction of a progressive mode video sequence in a receiver. Advantageously, both the spatio-temporal filter at the encoder, and the inverse process at the receiver, can perform scaling in spatial and temporal dimension. The second fields are used to generate enhancement signals, which enable a receiver to reproduce an interlaced video sequence of the full, or scaled, spatial and/or temporal resolution.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 20, 2004
    Date of Patent: April 10, 2012
    Assignee: Thomson Licensing
    Inventors: Gwenaelle Marquant, Guillaume Boisson, Edouard Francois, Jérôme Vieron, Philippe Robert, Christine Guillemot
  • Patent number: 8155205
    Abstract: A method provides for dynamic changes in a software video player. The method includes learning of a dynamic change from an input pin of a decoder filter, recording states of the decoder filter and a renderer filter, stopping the decoder and the renderer filters without changing a state of a source filter, and setting parameters for an output pin of the decoder filter. The parameters include setting a decoding mode. If the decoder filter output pin and a renderer filter input pin remain connected, a ReconnectEX function is used to set a new media type at the decoder filter output pin. Otherwise the method calls a Connect function to connect the pins and set the new media type. The method further includes changing to a decoder core in the decoder filter appropriate for the dynamic change and restoring the decoder and the renderer filters back to their original states.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 28, 2007
    Date of Patent: April 10, 2012
    Assignee: ArcSoft, Inc.
    Inventors: Chao Jin, Lingxiao Ma, Xiaofeng Jiang, Yaguang Xie
  • Publication number: 20120082242
    Abstract: The image coding method for improving the filtering quality and suppressing increase in the transmission bandwidth includes: selecting filter data elements of the first and second component filters from a filter memory (1330), and obtaining indexes stored in association with the selected filter data elements in the filter memory (1330) (S10, S11); coding a macroblock using the two filter data elements (S12); adding the two indexes to a coded video signal (S13); calculating the filter data elements of the first and second component filters based on a slice, and assigning indexes to the filter data elements (S20, S21); storing, in the filter memory (1330), a corresponding one of the calculated filter data elements and the index in association with each other for each of the component filters (S22); and adding the two calculated filter data elements to the coded video signal (S23).
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 10, 2010
    Publication date: April 5, 2012
    Inventors: Matthias Narroschke, Steffen Wittmann
  • Publication number: 20120082244
    Abstract: In a block-based motion compensated system, coding noises may arise due to lossy operations. Adaptive loop filter (ALF) is a technique used to improve the quality. A pixel adaptive (PA) ALF method was developed that uses the Sum-modified Laplacian Measure (SLM) to classify pixels and applies a respective ALF filter to each pixel according to the SLM. While the PA ALF achieves better performance over a conventional single filter (SF) based ALF, the PA ALF causes higher complexity and consumes more power due to the high complexity and per-pixel filter switching. Accordingly region based ALF scheme is disclosed which allows adaptive filter selection on a region by region basis and does not require per-pixel filter switching. In one embodiment according to the present invention, a picture is divided into M×N regions. The region based ALF also allows region merging for the M×N regions to improve performance.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 6, 2011
    Publication date: April 5, 2012
    Applicant: MEDIATEK INC.
    Inventors: Ching-Yeh Chen, Chih-Ming Fu, Chia-Yang Tsai, Yu-Wen Huang, Shaw-Min Lei
  • Patent number: 8149926
    Abstract: A deblocking unit may include a buffer, an edge mask generator, and a deblocking filter. The buffer may store video data including blocks. The blocks may correspond to at least a portion of a macroblock. The edge mask generator may generate a particular edge mask that defines edges between blocks to be deblocked. The edge mask generator may include an edge mask memory to store a number edge masks and logic to choose the particular edge mask among the number of edge masks. The logic may choose based on a type of the video data in the buffer and a position offset of the macroblock. The deblocking filter may deblock edges between blocks of video data in the buffer based on the particular edge mask from the edge mask generator.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 11, 2005
    Date of Patent: April 3, 2012
    Assignee: Intel Corporation
    Inventor: Ricardo Citro
  • Patent number: 8139675
    Abstract: A multi-tone system includes a data transmission circuit with an interface for receiving a data stream for transmission, a data steam splitter that splits the data stream to produce multiple substreams and a plurality of parallel data preparation circuits. Each data preparation circuit prepares a respective substream for transmission and generates a respective sub-channel signal. At least a first data preparation circuit of the plurality of parallel data preparation circuits includes a first analog filter for filtering a first substream. The first analog filter operates at a sample rate greater than the respective symbol rate of the first substream. The first analog filter provides pre-emphasis of the respective sub-channel signal and attenuation of signals outside of a respective band of frequencies corresponding to the respective sub-channel signal. The data transmission circuit also includes a combiner for combining respective sub-channel signals to generate a data transmission signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 19, 2010
    Date of Patent: March 20, 2012
    Assignee: Rambus Inc.
    Inventors: Vladimir M. Stojanovic, Amir Amirkhany, Jared L. Zerbe
  • Patent number: 8139651
    Abstract: Deblocking filters are disclosed, where the nature of the filter is determined based upon the level of detail of a reconstructed video frame in the region in which the block boundary is located. One embodiment of the method of the invention includes identifying a boundary between two blocks of the reconstructed video frame, determining the level of detail of the reconstructed video frame in a region in which the block boundary is located, wherein the region includes pixels from multiple rows and multiple columns of the reconstructed video frame and includes at least one pixel that is not immediately adjacent the block boundary and selecting a filter to apply to predetermined pixels on either side of the block boundary based upon the determined level of detail.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 26, 2010
    Date of Patent: March 20, 2012
    Assignee: DIVX, LLC
    Inventor: Cheng Huang
  • Patent number: 8139650
    Abstract: Presented are embodiments for nonlocal mean filtering that provide a robust and efficient method for reducing noise in digital images and video frames. These embodiments build on a separable property of neighborhood filtering to offer a fast, parallel and vectorized implementation in contemporary shared memory computer architectures while minimizing theoretical computational complexity. In practice, this approach is fast and scales linearly with image size.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 7, 2009
    Date of Patent: March 20, 2012
    Assignee: California Institute of Technology
    Inventors: Alexandre L. Cunha, Jerome B. Darbon
  • Patent number: 8139649
    Abstract: A method of recursive filtering a video image includes determining a local variance ?2 in luminosity in the vicinity of a picture element on the image; making an estimate of a value of noise variance ?r2; obtaining a surface for value of a proportional parameter K from the equation K = ? ? [ ? · ? · ? 2 ? · ? · ? 2 + ? · ? r 2 ] + ? where 1???128, 1 ??r?64 and ?, ?, ?, and ? are empirical constants, and selecting a value of ? to scale a relative contribution to the value of K by the luminosity variance and the noise variance. The image is recursively filtered using the proportional parameter K to sum proportions of the current image and an immediately preceding image.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 2, 2007
    Date of Patent: March 20, 2012
    Assignee: Ericsson AB
    Inventor: Arthur Mitchell
  • Publication number: 20120051425
    Abstract: Filtering is applied at a video encoder, and filter information is encoded in the bitstream to enable a video decoder to identify the filtering that was applied at the video encoder. The video decoder receives encoded video data that includes the filter information, decodes the video data, and applies filtering based on the filtering information. In this way, the decoder applies the same filtering that was applied at the encoder. Video can be encoded utilizing multiple filters with Laplacian filter indexing for multiple inputs for coded units partitioned using a quadtree partitioning scheme.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 7, 2011
    Publication date: March 1, 2012
    Applicant: QUALCOMM INCORPORATED
    Inventors: In Suk Chong, Marta Karczewicz, Wei-Jung Chien
  • Patent number: 8121199
    Abstract: We describe a method for reducing the block effect in video file compression including inspecting an image in a row and column direction, calculating an intensity vector of the block effect responsive to the inspecting, obtaining distribution data for the block effect responsive to the intensity vector, determining position information of the block effect responsive to the distribution data, and filtering the image responsive to the intensity vector and the position information.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 22, 2006
    Date of Patent: February 21, 2012
    Assignee: Pixelworks, Inc.
    Inventor: Qinghai Wang
  • Publication number: 20120039399
    Abstract: Methods and systems for encoding and decoding signals using a Multi-input Multi-output Time Encoding Machine (TEM) and Time Decoding Machine are disclosed herein.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 19, 2011
    Publication date: February 16, 2012
    Inventors: Aurel A. Lazar, Eftychios A. Pnevmatikakis
  • Patent number: 8116379
    Abstract: A parallel deblocking filtering method, and deblocking filter processor performing such deblocking, for removing edge artifacts created during video compression. The method includes loading luma samples for a macroblock. Filtering is performed on a set of vertical edges of the macroblock using information in the luma samples, with vertical edge filtering occurring concurrently with the loading of the luma samples. The method also includes filtering a set of horizontal edges of the macroblock using information in the luma samples. The horizontal edge filtering occurs in parallel with vertical edge sampling and with loading operations. The use of parallel and concurrent operations significantly enhances the efficiency of the deblocking method. Storing of filtered samples is also performed in the method, and this storing is performed concurrently with some loading operations as well as filtering operations. Edge filtering includes performing filtering to the H.264 standard and its deblocking filtering algorithm.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 22, 2005
    Date of Patent: February 14, 2012
    Assignee: STMicroelectronics, Inc.
    Inventor: Philip P. Dang
  • Patent number: 8116384
    Abstract: A moving picture coding apparatus includes an inter-pixel filter having filters for filtering decoded image data so as to remove block distortion which is high frequency noise around block boundaries. The inter-pixel filter includes filters having different filtering strengths. The coding apparatus also includes a filter processing control unit for determining a filtering strength of the inter-pixel filter.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 31, 2007
    Date of Patent: February 14, 2012
    Assignee: Panasonic Corporation
    Inventors: Teck Wee Foo, Chong Soon Lim, Sheng Mei Shen, Shinya Kadono
  • Patent number: 8111760
    Abstract: Deblock filtering for Microsoft WMV video decoders partitions the computation so that the deblock filtering operations can be performed on horizontal or vertical stripes or in one pass on oversized macroblocks.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 16, 2006
    Date of Patent: February 7, 2012
    Assignee: Texas Instruments Incorporated
    Inventors: Ching-Yu Hung, Ngai-Man Cheung
  • Patent number: RE43360
    Abstract: A technique for improving image compression by pre-processing the image frames. In particular, methods for de-interlacing and noise reduction using combinations of median filters, applied both spatially and temporally, with and without motion analysis, are described.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 13, 2009
    Date of Patent: May 8, 2012
    Assignee: Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation
    Inventor: Gary A. Demos